


Somewhere Quiet

by Aurumite



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Black Eagles route, F/M, They are Together but not strictly romantically or sexually, postgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 22:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20199109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurumite/pseuds/Aurumite
Summary: Silence blankets the space between them. There is a rustle as her fingers fidget with the coverlet.They do not touch. They never touch.





	Somewhere Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> I really liked the ambiguity in their A support and endgame for the Crimson Flower route, so here we are.

“But you bathed this morning.”

It is the first thing Edelgard says to Hubert when she reaches her rooms for the night. Hubert himself has only just arrived, fresh from his bath, and the sharp herbs of the soap must still linger on his skin. Perceptive, those senses of hers. The corners of her mouth dip.

“Did something happen?”

“Nothing of any note or consequence, Your Majesty.”

He simply had not wanted to arrive with blood beneath his fingernails and magic still acrid and staticky in his clothes. Torture is rarely effective in uncovering real truths, and Hubert knows this well, but when it comes to those who slither in the dark...he will admit to relishing the same tactics once used upon his lady.

Edelgard levels a look at him but does not part her lips. Even now, with all her dreams accomplished and the steps of power sweeping low beneath her after her ascent, her tongue stills rather than ask about his secret war. Hubert does not speak of it either. She escaped it long ago, and finishing it falls to him now.

“I have duties of my own, Your Majesty. You can trust me to handle them. You are finished with yours for the day.”

She turns her back and heads for the ornately carved wardrobe—a retreat but not a surrender, never a surrender.

Hubert can not help but watch her in her splendor, the horns of her crown glinting in the lamplight. The throne has been good for her, and victory better yet. The stubbornness of her youth has matured like a wine into a sophisticated firmness that crushes all dissent. People agree with what she says without considering their own opinions. Commoners seek out fallen feathers under the trees where black eagles nest, and press them joyfully into her hands when she departs the castle. Children do not weep in the dungeon any longer; it is reserved for the monsters Hubert can ensnare from the shadows.

Edelgard is not without her entertainments, either. At least twice a year Dorothea blows into the castle and sweeps Edelgard off to the opera. She is never back until the next morning, hair impeccable and clothes unwrinkled but a perfume too sweet and floral to be hers clinging to her neck. It is not difficult to imagine the lipstick she has rubbed off her face or the voice she made sing in the night.

And between these visits there are the days of her roundtable, listening to her advisers. Sometimes Ferdinand argues a particular way, eyes gleaming, hair spilling over his shoulder and across his papers, refusing to yield his foolhardy charge until Edelgard is furious. On those afternoons she pushes him into his rooms here at the castle, both their cheeks flushed with indignation, and they never emerge until well after dinner.

Hubert sees to his duties during that time, if he has any, and otherwise he stands in her room and wrings his hands through his gloves. Paranoia has never failed him, but after this many years he knows Edelgard's allies to be true. Beneath the twisting of his stomach he is pleased, even, that she can bring people into her confidence again; ask them for what Hubert has never wanted to provide and what Edelgard has never wanted him to.

She is beautiful, of course. He has functional eyes. He also understands that he is far from handsome. But the way they are now, the way they have always been, is what brings him the most pleasure, though he knows better than to try to explain it to anyone else. To simply be at her side, to love quietly with no reciprocation or fulfillment—perverse, perhaps, but for him it is enough. It is _better_.

And despite her suitors, it is Hubert with her at the end of the day, helping her disrobe from her elaborate outfits with the cloth of his gloves as a barrier between them. He is the one that sees her shake her hair loose as if she were a girl again. The one that draws her blanket up around her, though she used to insist she could do it herself. Over the years she has come to understand that he too has needs to fulfill, if only in his own peculiar way.

He is the only one permitted to join her in her bed: to watch over her in the darkness, because of those who slither within it, and the pain they have branded into her mind.

They do not touch. They never touch. But there is intimacy in the smokey scent of the candle he extinguishes, and the hiss of the sheets as he slides in beside her. They are already warm.

And before bed, there is always the conversation. The moments that belong to only the two of them, and not to the Empire. Hubert is still, waiting for what she has to say tonight.

“My father gave up the crown to me.”

Her voice, so strong and melodious by day, is only a murmur in the night.

“So he did,” he answers.

“So many times in the history books, that is not the case. The reigning ruler is corrupted, will not give up power even to their heirs. Successors must sometimes even bring war to the crown's doorstep in order to finally earn it. Is that not so?”

“It is so.”

“I will not be that ruler.”

The conviction is so familiar that Hubert can't help but smile. All the better that she can not see.

“So you are thinking about an heir, then?”

“In a sense.”

“As much as it pains me to say it, a child with Ferdinand would be strategically sound. Perhaps even poetic, as after everything his house has done to yours, the Hresvelg heir would carry his blood yet assume _your_ throne.” He quirks an eyebrow, knowing that after all these years, Edelgard can hear it in his voice. “Besides, I'm sure Ferdinand himself would be delighted by the idea.”

“In that case, I must refuse.”

They both laugh, quiet, dark, they way they always have. There was never the room or the time or the sunlight to give up in peals the way their comrades always have.

“It's not an heir I want,” Edelgard says. “I have no interest in carrying one, nor in deciding a leader by blood. What I need is a successor.”

“No one could succeed you.”

“Hubert.” Her voice takes on a stern edge.

“I will not recant. No one will ever do for history what you have done.”

“And yet I can not be around forever. Would you not trust whoever I choose and hand-train?”

“I suppose,” he says, relenting. “But expect me to voice my disagreements as they arrive.”

She chuckles again. “I most certainly will.”

He leans back into the pillows. His eyes have adjusted now and he can make out the velvet edges of the bed canopy above him.

“So when you have chosen your successor and relinquished your power, what then? You will continue in an advisory capacity?”

“No.”

It is all she gives, and that is how Hubert knows that whatever she's thinking makes her feel shy. It is such a rare thing that he sits up.

“Tell me more, Edelgard.”

Her name leaves him more softly than he would have liked, but in her bed he has been told to forego her title. It feels more correct than it should; than the way he was raised. But in his heart, this indomitable warrior, this unifier of nations, this slayer of gods—Edelgard is the only thing she has ever been.

She shifts too, propping herself to an elbow. He can't feel the weight of her pale eyes any longer.

“I would like to leave,” she says.

“To where?”

“I have not decided yet. Somewhere quiet.”

Silence blankets the space between them. There is a rustle as her fingers fidget with the coverlet.

They do not touch. They never touch.

“I spoke about it with Byleth, once,” she admits in a whisper so faint it almost dissipates between them. “A time to finally rest, after the war. Days filled with tea parties and eating sweets and total idleness. Sleeping into the afternoon.”

Waking in the sun. White hair tousled, nightgown rumpled, a pink splotch on her cheek from her pillow. Is such a thing possible?

“Hubert.”

“I am listening.”

“Will you come with me?”

The ache that wracks him is so good that he shudders, and it takes him a moment to regain his words. Dorothea, sonorous and smiling; Ferdinand, forthright and gallant; and she would ask _Hubert_.

“I am not suited to that life,” he says. “Can you imagine me attending tea all day?”

“Perhaps all night,” she teases. “With the windows covered and a single candle on the table so that you look especially gaunt.”

“Charming.”

“Imagine this, then. You read however long you like, and nothing interrupts you.”

“You have my attention.”

“You can wear your gloves, but you'll never have to change them after 'days of no note or consequence'.”

“And now I'm bored.”

“Hubert. You will never have to listen to Ferdinand prattle unless you deliberately invite him over.”

He exhales sharply; she will know it for a laugh. They do not touch, they never touch, but his hand fists in the blanket close to where hers has, so she can feel it grow taut between them.

“Edelgard, you need not convince me. You know I will always follow you everywhere.”

“Thank you, my friend.” Her voice drops yet again. It is only a breath now. “I will look forward to it.”

And then there is only the soft, deep sigh of an Emperor sleeping.


End file.
